Managing Pregnancy at Work Course

• HR personnel
• Managers & Supervisors
• Expectant mothers

There is a range of workplace hazards that could affect the health and safety of a new or expectant mother or her child. Appropriate action should be taken to identify, and remove or reduce the risks associated with these hazards.

The Health & Safety Act 1974 requires employers to reduce risks to employees ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’. In other words, an employer is expected to take measures to avoid or reduce risk so long as those measures are not technically impossible or if the time, trouble or cost of the measures is not grossly disproportionate to the risk.  For example, providing a pregnant employee with a comfortable workstation is not difficult in terms of time, trouble or cost and therefore should be done.

The Management of Health and Safety Regulations (MHSW for short) require employers to identify appropriate steps through periodic risk assessments.

Employers must include hazards to new and expectant mothers, when conducting a general workplace risk assessment.  We cover the common hazards in the course.

If you employ over 5 people you must keep a written record of your risk assessment.

Any breach of Health and Safety legislation in relation to new and expectant mothers is considered automatic sex discrimination.

Legally, employees don’t have to tell their employer about their pregnancy until the 15^th week before the baby is due. However, many choose to do so after the first trimester, once they’ve had their first scan, to ensure that appropriate health and safety precautions are in place.

Employers should consider helping pregnant employees:

• Avoid strenuous manual handling activities wherever possible
• Wear sensible footwear and be alert to slip, trip and fall hazards
• Ensure that they take regular short breaks when using computers
• Adjust their DSE workstation to accommodate their changing requirements
• Ensure that they are aware of the fire evacuation procedure for their site area